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Sunday, December 5, 2010

Happy December! Do you all have a good start on the holiday preparations? My goal is to try to get the house decorated today and start making cookie doughs. Shopping has already begun and the Christmas cards are started.

I decided this week to continue hosting the Gilmore Girls Reading Challenge for another year. I have to admit that I've sort of failed at my own challenge: I had a specific list of books that I wanted to read for it, but I've had to resort to reading entirely different books in hopes of reaching my goal of 20 books off the list. I still want to read all of those books that I didn't get to so this is the best way to encourage myself to do so. I've made some changes to the challenge this year--instead of 5, 10 and 20 books to read for the different levels, next year the three levels will be 4, 6 and 10 books. Next year you'll also be able to substitute in some movie adaptations to try to reach that goal as well.

I had a couple of squeal moments Friday thanks to my first Fairy Tale Fridays in which I referenced the Omaha Lit Fest, Tim Schaffert and Kate Bernheimer. I opened my email Friday evening to discover emails from both Schaffert and Bernheimer! Schaffert left a comment saying that "The Little Mermaid" is not only his favorite fairy tale but also his favorite short story. I remember him mentioning that at the Lit Fest; it was also his starting off point for the fairy tale he contributed to "My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me." You'll be hearing more about that story later.

Bernheimer wrote to say that she does have a definition of fairy tales: "they are works of art with a fairy-tale feel, the "affect" of fairy tales." She also directed me to some essays that she's written about fairy tales which are fascinating. I'll be talking about them this week on Friday.

Finally, happy birthday to my sister tomorrow! I won't say how old she is, mostly because I'm hoping that she'll keep quiet about how old I am!

How cool that they took the time to email you! I would have been so very excited as well! I hope that you have an amazing week in reading and that you find a really good fairy tale to share with us this week!

Yes, I can say I've got a good start on all the Christmas preparations. I'm still at loss for some ideas for certain people regarding presents, but that's normal.

I'm still pondering challenges for next year too. I did join a Gilmore Girls one... don't know if it was yours or not, but perhaps I'll switch so it will be officially yours! Anyway, I failed miserably too... at that one and many others. So I'm not sure how much I'll sign up for next year.

I LOVE squeal moments! So glad you had one. You know I had an awesome one last week too! :)

Is your house smelling great now? I never get things done in terms of decorating & baking quite when I hope too...did you? But it's fun to spread it out.

My challenges didn't happen for me once the beginning of the year took a different turn for several months. I'm going to try once more to participate in the Gilmore Girls challenge this coming year & see how it goes!

Book Review Policy

Unfortunately, I am not able to accept any new books for review at this time.
Every review is an honest representation of my impression of the book. I am not a professional book reviewer; rather my reviews are my opinions as a reader primarily reading for pleasure. I will try to alert readers to elements that some readers might find offensive.
My preferred genres are literary fiction, women's fiction, chick lit, mystery/suspense, historical fiction and memoir/biography. If you have a requested date in mind for review, I need to know this in the initial contact. I currently need three months lead time on a book. I will review every book I finish.